When the bat signal comes via text, Fern picks up Andi and drives the hour to Emma’s house in under forty-five minutes. They stop at the store for reinforcements and arrive at Emma’s with every variety of chips and dip that Trader Joe’s carries. Carolina is already on the couch, having been dropped off by Queenie with a box full of vegan-bakery cupcakes. “I haven’t eaten sugar in nearly a month, but this is worth the sacrifice.”
Andi heads to the dining room to grab wine from the rack. Emma is down the hall putting clean sheets on the extra beds. “Nobody’s driving home tonight,” she calls.
They’ve all brought their overnight bags. Devin at least had the decency to announce his girlfriend’s pregnancy on a Saturday night, meaning no one has to be at work in the morning. The runway is clear for staying up too late, drinking too much, and bitching their problems into oblivion.
As Fern assembles snacks, Andi returns holding two bottles. “What goes better with heartbreak and blinding rage? Cab Franc or Sangiovese?”
“I’ve got Verdicchio chilling.” Emma appears, dressed for an evening of commiseration in sweats and a sweatshirt that reads You Say Potato. I Say You’re Wrong.
Glasses clink. Middle-aged bones sink into sofa cushions. Oofs and aahs punctuate the air as they settle in.
“Thank you so much for coming, ladies.” Emma’s stress pulls at the bags beneath her eyes and plumps the wrinkles along her forehead. “I know it’s a lot to ask.”
“Couldn’t get rid of us if you wanted to,” Andi says. Fern and Carolina echo the sentiment.
“Me, especially,” says Carolina. “I’m here until someone piles me into a car and drives my limp ass home.”
The joke goes over about as well as a white man wearing a beret.
“Has the universe conspired against me?” Emma asks. “Because I don’t think it’s expecting too much to enjoy my only daughter’s wedding.”
The friends assure her it’s not.
“I mean, maybe the universe needs to temper my happiness by tossing in a needy, passive-aggressive mother-in-law, but Portia has made it very clear that I’m officially off Doris duty.”
“Wait.” Fern pauses the conversation. “We’ll return to Devin in a minute but what do you mean you’re ‘off Doris duty’?”
Emma bats the question away as if it’s of little consequence. “Oh, you remember. Doris was being so passive-aggressive about the wedding plans that I offered to step in as a buffer.”
“You volunteered to help with that shower?” Fern scoffs. “I thought you were the queen of saying no these days.”
“Oh, come on, Fern. As if you wouldn’t do the same for Maisy?”
Fern can’t believe Emma doesn’t recognize her own hypocrisy. “Sure. But Doris treated you like the caterer and maid.” She realizes this probably isn’t the best moment to pick an argument with a vulnerable woman, but the duplicity is just too obvious.
“I was trying to help.”
“Okay,” Andi interrupts while shooting Fern a look to cool it. “We all understand why you’d want to do that.”
Emma straightens, her hackles apparently up. “For what it’s worth, after the squabble at the bridal shower, Portia told Lyle that he is exclusively in charge of dealing with his mother. I don’t know where she learned them, but my daughter has boundaries.”
Carolina raises her glass. “To Portia. The prettiest, most badass bride-to-be there ever was.”
“Here! Here!” they say in unison.
Fern grabs a handful of sour cream and onion chips and passes the bowl. “Okay, back to the subject at hand, the man who brought us all together tonight. Let’s talk about that asshole Devin.” She and Mack never clicked with Devin. In their opinion, he talked too much about money and winning, but almost never about humanity and humility.
Emma had already forwarded the photo of Greta’s taut, rounded belly. Beneath the picture, Portia wrote, Did u know about this? Apparently, Devin hadn’t said a thing to any of them, not even to his daughter. He thought it better to spring it on her in person at dinner.
Emma scoffs. “She’s going to be eight months along at the wedding. No way of hiding that in the photos. Not that Devin would consider it.”
Fern can’t help but chuckle. “Well, that’s one way to steal the spotlight. Usually the mother of the bride pulls the prima donna antics, not the father.”
“He’s met his match in Doris,” Carolina adds.
Emma’s face lands in her palm. “Lord help us all.”
Andi snorts into her glass, and the room erupts in the kind of laughter that only comes on the heels of exhaustion, exasperation, and the knowledge that whatever is coming next only has a fifty-fifty chance of killing you.
“I’m sorry,” Emma catches her breath. “But can I just say...who looks that good pregnant? Seriously. Her cheekbones are so tight they look like she just had a facelift. I know she’s only five months along, but by then, my face was so puffy people thought I was having an allergic reaction to something.”
“You were,” Fern says. “To pregnancy.”
Carolina shrugs. “She probably got filler. Nothing is natural these days.”
“Can you even do that when you’re pregnant?” Fern wouldn’t know. She’s too cheap to buy anything more expensive than drugstore cosmetics.
Andi chimes in, “My doctor took me off everything, including caffeine and my antidepressant.”
“That’s just asking to get punched,” Fern replies.
“I know, right?”
“A male doctor?”
“No, surprisingly.”
Carolina returns the conversation back to Emma. “It must feel pretty crappy, though. Finding out the way you did. The timing. Having a baby with the woman he cheated with. All of it.”
She nods. “Thanks. And, yes, it does. Pretty crappy, indeed.”
A few hands reach for hers, a chorus of sympathetic tsks and clucks.
Then, “But what a dummy, am I right?” Emma is laughing again. “Devin is fifty-four and he’s about to start all over again. With the lack of sleep, and the hormonal wife, and the bills.”
“And all of that lasts a hell of a lot longer than the first few months,” Andi says. “He’s not going to get a full night’s sleep for years. Not when there’s ear infections coming and stomach bugs.”
“Teething. Nightmares. Tummy aches,” adds Fern.
Carolina says, “Think of how much more expensive a college education is going to be by the time this kid leaves for school.”
“Exactly.”
“Let’s hope it doubles.”
“He’ll probably be dead by then.” Emma’s as shocked by her casual cruelty as the rest of them. “Oh, my God, I can’t believe I just said that. But it’s true, no? He’ll be seventy-two.”
“Statistically, he’ll be close,” agrees Carolina. “At a minimum, his nut sack will be down to his knees.”
“Gross!”
“Does that happen?”
“God, I don’t even want to think about it.”
Emma takes a long sip. “Oh, but there’s more! Guess who called me today?”
Fern says, “The IRS.”
“Or Doris,” says Carolina. “She wants you to come clean up the mess you made.”
Andi adds, “Was it Greta?” Which makes Emma nearly shoot wine out of her nose.
She wipes her face with a napkin. “You’re all wrong. It was Carlton.”
“Willis?”
“The Carlton?”
“The asshole?”
The news has everyone pitched forward in their seats.
“What the hell did he want?” asks Carolina.
Emma holds her hand out to the group and tells them to appreciate the fact that, after over two decades, she’s finally able to say his name without shaking. “I’m not even sure what he wanted, to be honest. My head got muddled when I heard his voice.”
Andi looks directly at her. “What did he say, exactly?”
She thinks about it. “He was like, ‘Hey, Emma. I’m sure you’ve heard I’m running for Senate. And I’m sure you’ve heard about the accusations from my former assistant.’”
Her friends wait quietly while Emma retraces the conversation in her head.
“Then what?” Andi presses.
“Then... I wasn’t listening for probably half of it. But I know he said, ‘Are you with me?’”
Carolina scoffs. “He called to solicit your vote?”
“That’s what I wondered!”
“No,” says Andi. “He was asking if you’re with him. As in, are you going to keep your mouth shut.” She makes a circle with her finger. “Are we all going to keep our mouths shut.”
“Oh.” Emma’s face goes red. “Really?”
Andi nods. “And he left the question vague so that if you do ever speak up, you can’t say that he told you to stay quiet.”
“That asshole hasn’t changed a bit, has he?” Carolina says.
Fern says, “It sounds like he’s gotten worse.”
“Do you think I should say something?” Emma asks. “I mean, I can’t, right?”
The rest of them shake their heads. “It’s mutually assured destruction,” adds Fern.
“Then again...” Carolina equivocates. “Do you still care about that?”
None of them are saying the words aloud. Because they don’t need to. And because they took a vow of silence that day.
Emma, however, makes it clear that she very much does still care about that. “My daughter gets married in six weeks!”
Carolina raises her hands in surrender. “Fair enough. Just asking.”
“But you still have what you have, right?” asks Emma.
“I do.”
Tracking this evasive back-and-forth is giving Fern a headache. “You gotta block his number. Gimme your phone. I’ll do it for you.”
“Can’t.” Emma frowns. “The call came through as an Unknown Caller.”
“Identity blocking,” Andi says. “Not surprised.”
Emma reaches for the gummy bears. “Let’s just drop it, okay? I answered a call I shouldn’t have, but I know better now.”
“What if he shows up at your door?” asks Fern.
“Don’t scare her!” says Carolina.
“But what if?”
Andi catches Emma’s eye and shakes her head. “Then she won’t answer the door. Easy as that.”
“Changing the subject, as I requested...” Emma loudly clears her throat. “How do I get the neighbor’s dog to quit pooping in my yard?”
Fern makes a face. “Seriously? Gross.”
Carolina says, “Sorry, but Mrs. Roper is a lady. She minds her potty manners.”
“Honestly, I wish I could electrify the grass, or something,” says Emma. “Not enough to hurt the dog, but enough to teach him a lesson.”
“Have you talked to the neighbor?” asks Andi.
“Yep. And he hasn’t done anything about it.”
Carolina says, “Start leaving the poop bags at his front door. Then at least he has to throw it away.”
“And he’ll see actual proof of the crime,” says Fern. “It is a crime, isn’t it, Andi?”
She laughs. “I specialize in immigration law.”
“And this is a dog who’s migrating into Emma’s yard to poop!”
Andi rolls her eyes. “Okay. I’ll be sure to look for case law precedent as soon as I get home.”
The evening goes on like this, unfolding just as it should for friends who’ve shared as much as the four of them. The small group of women who’d share just about any secret, any fear, any dream.
Including thoughts about the past they’d naively believed would play no part in their middle-age lives.
It’s Carolina who returns the conversation to Carlton. “I’m not sure if this is bad news or not, but our CEO, Mark, had a meeting with Carlton. Next morning, Sandra told me Carlton dropped my name. Said we went ‘way back.’”
“You do.” In fact, Fern considers “way back” an understatement.
“But was it a signal? Another way for Carlton to warn us?”
Emma visibly sinks.
Andi sits up. “He knew the message would get to you.”
“Oh, come on, you guys.” Fern’s the writer. Of all of them, her brain is supposed to be the most naturally conspiratorial. “Don’t get paranoid. He knows Carolina’s boss has deep pockets. He could simply be trying to turn a personal connection into a campaign contribution. Politics 101.”
Carolina smirks and shakes her head. “It’s like you never even watched House of Cards.”
“We don’t talk about Kevin Spacey here. This is a safe space.”
“Chandler says he’s called him, too.”
“Because Chandler has money!” Fern is about to reiterate her confidence in Carlton’s past remaining in the past when Emma slams her wineglass on the table.
“I just want Portia to have a beautiful, peaceful, memorable day. Why is the universe trying to fuck that up for me?”